Softening the edges is not about going easy on students, reducing the rigor of the learning experiences we construct, or offering bonus points or easy tasks. Instead, it is about having enough respect for our learners to ask as much of them as they can give. Make no mistake—our learners can give a great deal. The potential of our students is astounding when they are met with high expectations, engaging purposes, and clarity about the strategies and skills they are working to develop. Edges are softened when the primary focus of our classroom work is to develop the relationships necessary to support risk taking, deep reflection, and passion. These qualities are as important for teachers as they are for students. A truly strong assessment and reporting system supports the development of this vision for every person in a learning space.
We want all learners to leave our school system filled with background information, strong skill sets, resilience, confidence, and the determination to accomplish whatever they decide will occupy their days. We cannot facilitate these goals by going easy on students. We can’t develop these attributes by making school a series of meaningless tasks for inauthentic purposes (grades) and a single audience (the teacher). We also cannot hope to nurture confident, independent learners by shutting them out of decision making and rendering them voiceless. We have to believe in our students so deeply that we refuse to accept less than their best. We have to believe in ourselves to accomplish this very complex vision for each learner. To do less and be less is simply not an option.
The Audience
While Softening the Edges very specifically explores ways to address these issues, it is not intended as an introduction to assessment. There are many other sources that introduce the fundamentals of assessment thoroughly (for example, Chappuis, Stiggins, Chappuis, & Arter, 2012; Davies, 2011; Guskey, 2015; O’Connor, 2007; and Wiggins & McTighe, 2005). For additional works, please refer to “References and Resources” beginning on page 205. Instead, Softening the Edges is for teachers who have been dabbling in unpacking or unwrapping learning goals but may not feel completely comfortable utilizing this work for real-life learning. It is for educators who have tried preassessments and formative assessments and experienced some discomfort or frustration at the way they affected students and the time they seemed to take away from learning. This book is for teachers who have tried many research-based practices but feel some challenge to align them with the reality in their classrooms. It is for teachers with experience in the world of assessment.
Educators know that teaching involves much more than simply spending time with students. To make classrooms run smoothly and productively, teachers must research, plan, instruct, assess, and respond to student needs. At times, even the most careful planning does not anticipate in-the-moment needs of learners or interruptions to the schedule of the day (assemblies, announcements). The skills required to meet the needs of diverse learners within a school environment are astoundingly complex. It is challenging to be a teacher.
A common experience for many educators involves spending most of their time out of the classroom planning units, preparing upcoming lessons, and assessing completed student work. Understandably, it is difficult to also find time to engage in a growing body of literature that attempts to capture and define good teaching. Staying on top of research is challenging, and sorting through a myriad of suggestions, tips, techniques, and studies can be a daunting task for time-pressed teachers. Teachers may explore this research under hurried circumstances, with little time for thinking deeply about the implications of the information or experimenting with the most effective ways to apply the ideas in a classroom setting.
As a result, teachers work through processes that administrative directives require and approaches they have been introduced to in conferences, workshops, or other professional learning sessions, perhaps without fully understanding the reasons for doing so. Classrooms can become a patchwork of techniques and strategies, with little opportunity to reflect, refine, and redo. Understandably, teachers may feel disengaged with initiatives and disenfranchised by mandates. Everything can feel isolated and separate, conveying a sense of things piling up as opposed to fitting together.
Even for experienced educators, the challenge remains that our classrooms are filled with an infinite number of variables. This is the nature of human work. Labeling an approach as the approach just doesn’t suffice. Each approach may be helpful, depending on the circumstances and needs of the people involved. Perhaps the most important thing to do, for both ourselves and our students, is to sort out what we believe about learning and the purpose of school. This book takes the position that any decision we make inside our classrooms has to emerge from our values, beliefs, and needs. It has to honor who our learners are as whole people, and who we are as their teachers.
The Teacher Voice
It is important to acknowledge that throughout this process of exploring our craft within the classroom context, our identities as teachers will shift when we step outside comfortable practices and try new things. This changing perception of who we are within our work impacts the choices we make every day. Like our students, we bring our own previous experiences, prior knowledge, and life circumstances to our role. We have the same need for empathy and compassion. We need opportunity and time for reflection. Our whole person must be nurtured and our voices must be heard. Ken Robinson (2015) explains, “There is no system of education in the world that is reliably better than its teachers” (p. 264). When the education system ignores teacher voice, it becomes increasingly challenging to feel like we have a voice at all. We may begin to question the need for risk taking and research, for reflection and discussion. However, when we minimize our own thoughts and ideas, we minimize our voice, which ultimately deprofessionalizes the work of educators as a whole.
D. Jean Clandinin and F. Michael Connelly (2000) describe a classroom as a shared space. It is a place where stories are lived in a shared, but private environment. Alongside that notion is the idea that teachers and students are continually building a classroom culture that is very personal to those within that room. Relationships serve as the foundation, and practices become comfortable and predictable; everyone learns the rules of engagement, including the teachers.
The primary challenge with this model of education is that as teachers, we are not often afforded the chance to reflect on our practices with others. Clandinin and Connelly (1995) explain, “What is missing in the classroom is a place for teachers to tell and retell their stories of teaching” (p. 13). Without this opportunity to reflect and collaborate with others, we are left to manage the effect our work has on our sense of who we are as educators. Making time each day to meet with colleagues and share struggles and celebrations can often be enough to move us into our next round of risk taking and reflection. Documenting, together, the results of new practices and approaches can invite an increasingly sophisticated understanding of our assessment practices.
Teaching is incredibly complex, and educators are relentlessly asked to change practices, to shift beliefs, and often to do it alone. Our voices are not always heard and certainly not considered when many decisions are being made by district, state, or national leaders. Regardless of the intention of their decisions (to improve learning, to increase accountability, to enhance available resources, to reduce spending), these decisions impact us and our students. Carol Ann Tomlinson, Kay Brimijoin, and Lane Narvaez (2008) identify the unexpected degree of emotional response to change:
We are unaware of or unprepared to deal with the implications of change in classroom practice. We tend to deal with the change on a superficial level, tend to neglect fidelity to the change, and are often unprepared to deal with the fear, tension, loss, and conflict that inevitably accompany change. (p.11)
The absence of opportunity to reflect on our experiences and tell our stories means our ability to change and still retain a strong teaching identity is challenged.